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“You okay, man?”
“I’ll live,” Jason groaned, taking Leo’s offered hand and getting to his feet.
He brushed toasted monster dust off his orange Camp Half-Blood shirt and did one more visual sweep, making sure all the angry shrub demons were gone. “Are the supplies okay?”
Leo patted his magical tool belt and grinned. “Safe and sound with the world’s greatest mechanic.”
“And the most humble,” Jason added, giving his friend a look of fond exasperation. “Alright, let’s get back to Camp. I think I can call Tempest once we get outside of the town limits.”
“Great,” Leo muttered, already holding his stomach. “Man, I miss Festus. I can’t wait until the ship launches.”
“Me, too, bud. Me, too.”
They walked in silence for a little while, heading vaguely east towards Camp.
It was late May now. Soon, they would be sailing for New Rome. The memories of Jason’s home were still fuzzy, which seemed strange given how long he had been there.
He traced the lines of his service, burned into his forearm.
Camp Jupiter was his home. He had risen through the ranks of the Fifth Cohort and been made praetor.
Now, he had been gone for so long.
Did the Romans miss him the way the Greeks missed Percy Jackson? Were they still searching for him the way Annabeth, Grover, and even the Hunters of Artemis looked for Percy?
It did not seem likely. The Romans had probably cut their losses by now. The Twelfth Legion waited for no man—not even their praetor.
Had someone else been promoted in battle? The Feast of Fortuna had not passed, so they wouldn’t have voted for a new praetor yet. He hoped Reyna was alright. He hoped Octavian wasn’t giving her too much grief, but then, he probably was.
Jason sighed.
“That was a heavy sigh, my man,” Leo pointed out. “What’s got you thinking?”
“Camp Jupiter,” he said honestly.
If he survived the Prophecy of Seven—if the world survived—where would he return to? Would he go back to Camp Jupiter? Would he retire to the city? He had more than passed his service requirement.
Or, would he stay at Camp Half-Blood with Piper and Leo? Would he make the hostile walls of Cabin 1 into a home? Would he get used to sleeping alone instead of in barracks?
He didn’t know.
Maybe he’d just wait and see where he was needed.
Leo squinted at him like he was a malfunctioning piston and he was trying to figure out how to fix it. “You know what, we’re taking a side trip.”
He looped his arm through Jason’s and dragged him to a shop with a light blue awning. The scent of sugar filled the air, and Jason focused on the sign, trying to decode the letters into English. “Ben and Jerry’s? That’s an ice cream brand, right?”
Leo stopped short and Jason almost knocked him over. “Dude, have you never had Ben and Jerry’s before?”
“Uh… no? There’s a local ice cream parlor in New Rome, so we never got ice cream outside.”
“That’s a real travesty. Don’t worry, big brother Leo is here to guide you through your first time. You’ll love it,” he promised, wiggling his brows.
Jason scrunched his nose. “Don’t word it like that.”
Leo cackled and then dragged Jason into the ice cream parlor, the little cowbell jingling overhead as they stepped through the door.
The air tasted like dozens of different sweets, and Jason’s senses spun for a second, and then he took a deep breath, savoring the sweet, chocolatey, creamy scent.
The shop was quiet, just the hum of coolers and the fading echoes of the bell.
Leo grinned back at him. “My treat, as thanks for that lightning assist earlier.”
Jason chuckled. “Alright, thanks.”
They walked up to the counter, and Leo began flirting with the pretty college-aged girl with a name tag that read ‘Mallory.’ She seemed more amused than offended and let Leo and Jason try all sorts of flavors.
The combinations danced on Jason’s tongue, and he probably moaned a few times, based on Leo’s increasingly lecherous looks.
“I’ll take a waffle cone with Cherry Garcia, if you please, chica,” Leo requested.
Mallory scooped the chocolate and cherry ice cream onto a crisp cone, and Jason set down his fifth tasting, the remnants of Americone Dream still on his tongue.
“I’ll have what he’s having,” Jason said.
Leo looked over at him, surprised. They hadn’t sampled Cherry Garcia, after all. Which meant that it was Leo’s favorite.
Mallory made a second cone, rung them up, and then they were off. Walking down the street, Jason passed Leo a handful of napkins.
“Thanks.”
Jason licked his ice cream, savoring the slight cherry infused-flavor in the vanilla base. Then, he nibbled a bit of chocolate and cherry, getting the full richness. The bitter edge of the dark chocolate helped balance the cherry flavor, and then the vanilla swept it all together.
“This is really good!”
Leo looked at him sideways and smiled, not grinning, but smiling. “It is, isn’t it?”
“It’s your favorite?”
“Not exactly. Well… maybe now.”
Jason looked at him and waited.
“I used to be much more into the cookie dough one, but Cherry Garcia was my mom’s favorite. We didn’t get ice cream often, let alone this stuff—it ain’t cheap, y’know?”
Jason hummed to show he was listening.
“But when it was on sale, Mama would stock up on Cherry Garcia. We’d always crack it open to celebrate a good day or to make a bad day a little less terrible.”
“It does make the day less terrible,” Jason agreed quietly, squeezing Leo’s shoulder.
He wondered what kind of rituals he and Thalia would have had if they had been allowed to grow up together.
Hopefully, after all of this, they would get a chance to find out.
“Alright, no more moping today!” Leo announced, stretching his arms overhead, the ice cream cone aloft like Lady Liberty’s torch. “We’ve got good company and good ice cream, and Piper is waiting for us. Let’s go home.”
Jason blinked, noting Leo’s word choice. After years on the run, he knew that Leo didn’t take the concept of home lightly. He smiled. “Yeah, let’s go home.”